Florida: Gingrich 47, Romney 17, Cain 15, Paul 5

posted at 4:27 pm on November 30, 2011 by Allahpundit

I know what you’re thinking: “Didn’t Jazz already blog the new giant-lead-for-Gingrich-in-Florida poll?” Actually, no — that was a different poll, conducted by Insider Advantage. This new one comes from PPP. We’ve now got two separate surveys showing Newt Gingrich — Newt Gingrich — above 40 percent in a key battleground state with Romney 20+ points behind.

Come on now. We’re not really going to do this, are we?

In addition to his support for the nomination, Romney’s personal popularity is down too. His Florida favorability was +43 (65/22) and it’s declined 28 points to +15 (51/36). He’s dropped in Montana too although it’s a more modest change there from +11 (47/36) to only +5 (44/39)…

The magnitude of Gingrich’s leads now is an indication that he’s appealing to every segment of the Republican electorate. He’s up with the Tea Party in both states (53% to 24% for Cain and 7% for Romney in Florida, 42% to 18% for Bachmann, 13% for Cain, 10% for Paul, and 5% for Romney in Montana.) But he’s winning over party moderates as well (33% to 22% for Romney in Florida, 31% to 17% for Romney in Montana.) Gingrich’s favorability in Florida is 72/21 and in Montana it’s 65/23. You don’t attain those kinds of numbers without having a lot of appeal to every faction in the party…

As strong as Gingrich is in these polls there’s still evidence he could get stronger. Despite his troubles this week, which voters may not yet be fully aware of, Cain hit double digits on both of these polls. If his declining support bottoms out after the newest set of revelations, Gingrich will be the beneficiary. 45% of Cain voters in Florida say he is their second choice to only 13% for Romney and in Montana Cain backers prefer Newt over Romney 35-11 as a back up.

How strong is the sudden surge of Newtmania? Dude:

The only good news for Romney is that he stands to inherit most of Gingrich’s voters if Newt crumbles, but since there’s already a Cain crumble in progress and Newt stands to mop up most of those votes, the Gingrich implosion would have to be truly cataclysmic to make Florida safe for Mitt before the primary. Another reason he’s doing especially well in Florida is seniors: He was more than 20 points better than his closest competitor among the 65+ crowd in CNN’s latest national poll and PPP’s got him above 54 percent in its new one. We all know what senior turnout is like so he should have no problem getting people to the polls against Romney. He joked this morning at an event in South Carolina that he “only” wants the 65 percent of Republicans that haven’t already committed to Romney or Ron Paul. The way he’s going in Florida, he might get it.

Now, serious question: How is it we’ve landed on Newt instead of taking a second look at Perry? Perry’s last few debates have been fine and he’s spent months groveling to make amends for calling his immigration critics heartless. And of course he’s still got that glamorous Texas jobs record to wield against Obama in the general if he makes it that far. He’s down to almost an asterisk in PPP’s Florida poll, though — just two percent, a point behind Huntsman, after peaking at 24 percent there just two months ago. His favorable rating is an almost unimaginable 27/55, which is right in line with other recent eyepopping surveys. How did we arrive in a universe where there’s an almost 50-point spread in likability between Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich? Isn’t Newt the guy who was a big Donald Berwick fan before being a Donald Berwick fan was decidedly uncool? Wasn’t he way ahead of the curve in pushing health-care ideas like the mandate that conservatives are now ready to destroy Romney for? Didn’t he spend a chunk of the last decade lobbying, in consummate “insider” fashion, and then lamely trying to pretend that it wasn’t, you know, lobbying-lobbying? Hasn’t he been the tea party’s public enemy number one more than once, having endorsed Dede Scozzafava in that special election in New York and then dumping on Paul Ryan’s budget this summer? What about this cavalcade of Newt’s bright ideas that Jim Geraghty spent the morning compiling? Via the Daily Caller, listen to the Mark Steyn clip below for a gloss on that. And yet, and yet, thanks to his surge among Republicans, he’s now viable enough to lead Obama head-to-head and stands a not insignificant chance of running the table in the early states. How did it come to this?Exit quotation: “Whereas I would have thought originally it was going to be Mitt and not-Mitt, I think it’s going to — it may turn out to be Newt and not-Newt.”

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Comments

When I look at you, Newt Gingrich, what I see
Is the face of John McCain starring back at me
I can hear that very same devious snicker
As hopes for America’s salvation in 2012 now flicker
You may now be the Republican leading star
But, New Gingrich, I know who you really are

Newt is an idea guy and some of them have been stinkers. Romney is a business man and successful business and government seldom seem to mesh. Probably more from not being given a chance. I won’t deny a preference but I will vote for either. We have a while yet, maybe even Gov. Perry might come around again.

Holdren is a crazy Neo-Malthusian nut, but he was also a respected Harvard guy at the time Mitt used him as a “consultant” (and the fact that the alarmists had “hid the decline” was not known at that time). As I said at the original Holdren thread, it’s improbable that Mitt knew about Holdren’s dark side, and you have to put things in perspective as to what the prevailing views were at the time. In the end, Mitt did not go through with much of what he planned. See the thread for details (It’s a long one…).

Buy Danish:
Lots of talk in that thread. Holdren appears to have written a paper in 1990 entitled Building Global Security Through Cooperation. One summary of the text included: “Even though the rationale for the huge military forces has been removed from the East-West relationship, these forces still retain a tremendous potential to do harm.” While it is clear that this is just a snippet, my guess is that Holdren was clearly recognizable on Pearl Harbor day 2005 as a flaming “Kennedy School of Government” liberal.
But I don’t know that for sure.

Would never call you left wing. The cited stat is liberal math at its’ finest.

The correct percent is 54%, rounded of course.

kg598301 on November 30, 2011 at 9:43 PM

Devore was correct when he said this:

It is true that Texas had a nation-leading net of 279,000 more jobs in the second quarter of 2011 than it did in the second quarter of 2007. But CIS’s claim that immigrants filled 225,000 of these jobs is wrong.

He promptly uses the wrong explanation.

To debunk the first three findings in the CIS report, Table 1 of same does the trick.

I respect that sentiment but would hope you give Newt the chance to earn your vote anyway. There are plenty of positive aspects of Newt that you can focus on. For your own peace of mind should you find yourself in that situation.

Of course Mitt’s in trouble. His long-term strategy is to ignore the conservative wing of a conservative party. And if you think he’s ignoring us now, just wait until the primaries are over. With no place else to go, it’s “Good Bye right wing extremists.”
He could have disavowed Romneycare without “flip-flopping” if he wanted to. All that was needed was for him to say “look, it was a state experiment and you run experiments to see how they turn out. I’m proud of having tried to fix the health care problem, but really we now know that this is not the way to go.” So where is the flip-flop? But no, he has to stick to Romneycare because once he gets beyond the primaries it’s time to reconsider the whole healthcare issue in “a more nuanced way.”
With his record who believes that once he gets into office anything of a conservative nature would even get accomplished?

Newt is saying all the right things. Unlike Romney (on healthcare) and Perry (on immigration) he isnt making excuses for things like the “Pelosi couch ad”. He is admitting mistakes. Those other two are pridefully clinging to unpopular ideas that are unacceptable to the base. He may be very similar to Romney in ways but he talks differently and in a way that feels more genuine and much more conservative.

Romney is what he is, a slick, RINO Republican ex Governor from a New England state that you either like or you dont….and many of us dont. He seems like the worst stereotype of a politician sometimes.

Perry is toast for one main reason. The Republican base does not want a Texas Governor with a southern accent who speaks poorly, can be pegged as dumb, and is a horrible debater, as their nominee. We cannot run someone who reminds America of GW Bush in all the worst ways but not the good ones. There is just something off about the guy and GOPers can smell it.

Newt would destroy Obama in the way we rarely get to see on our side….with a constant stream of intelligent arguments that are both wonky and easily understandable. Thats very attractive to me.

I have problems with both front runners, but in a choice between the two I like Newt better. I believe if Mitt can beat Obama then Newt can destroy him. The undressing Obama would receive by Gingrich intellectually would be unprecedented and beautiful.

Isn’t Newt the guy who was a big Donald Berwick fan before being a Donald Berwick fan was decidedly uncool? Wasn’t he way ahead of the curve in pushing health-care ideas like the mandate that conservatives are now ready to destroy Romney for? Didn’t he spend a chunk of the last decade lobbying, in consummate “insider” fashion, and then lamely trying to pretend that it wasn’t, you know, lobbying-lobbying? Hasn’t he been the tea party’s public enemy number one more than once, having endorsed Dede Scozzafava in that special election in New York and then dumping on Paul Ryan’s budget this summer? What about this cavalcade of Newt’s bright ideas that Jim Geraghty spent the morning compiling?

EXACTLY!!!

yet all of you Gingrich fans can overlook ALL of this? Romney, who had the backing of many on our side in 2008 and has NOT changed any of his positions, is the one viewed as a flip-flopper?

Looking at Gingrich’s stances above, Romney should be a shoe-in with his economic background better than anyone’s in the race which makes me wonder WHAT REALLY is the reason because as Allah points out Gingrich IS NO CONSERVATIVE and many of you are on notice as flip-floppers with your principles? Not to mention the arrogance that drips out of this guy that even his former campaign manager Rich Galen said he is Steve Jobs but without the I-Pod at the other end of his ideas.